The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-08-25
xTALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on the Pulpit Minis
tration Of the Future.
What the Preaching, Teaching aud Ex-
Fortation Must Be ir Order to
Reach All the People--P0int aud
Brevity to be Commended.


Rev. r, Dewitt Talmage, In "a recent |
sermon at ''The Hamptons," took sor his |
subject: preaching, Teaching and Ex- |
bortation," illustrating i from the fol-
lowing text:
Or ministry, let US wait on our ministering; |
Or he that teacheth on teaching: or he that OK
northeth. on observation-disclosures xiii, z, 8.
Before the world is converted the style |
of religious discourse will have to be con- |
verified. You might as well go into the
modern Sedan or Gettysburg with bows
and arrows instea1 of rif1ss and bomb
shells and parks of a 'tillery, as to expect
to conquer this world for God BIZ the old
styles of exhortation and sermon ology.
Jonathan Edw r1s preached the sermons
most adapted to the age in which he
lived, but if those sermons were preached
now they would divide the audience into
cases, those sound asleep and those
wanting to go home.
But there is a religious discourse of the
future-who will Up" each it have no idea;
In what Part Of the earth it will be born
have no idea; in which denomin ations
Of Chris tians it will be delivered l can
not guess. That discourse or exhorta'ion
house on the banks of the st. Lawrence,
or the Oregon, or the Ohio or the Tom
bigbee, or the Alabama. The person who
shall deliver it may at this moment be in
a cradle under the shadow of the
Sierra Nevadas, or in New
England farm house, or amid
the rice-fielIs Of Southern Savan-
nas. Or this moment there may be some
young man in some of our theological
seminaries, in the junior or middle or
senior class, shaping that weapon of
power. Or there may be coming some
aew baptism Of the Holy Ghost on the
churches, so that some of us who now
stand in the watchtowers of Zion, waking
to a realization of Our present inefhciency,
may preach it ourselves. That coming
discourse or exhortation may not be fifty
years of. And let US pray God that its
arrival may be fastened, while announce
to you what think will be the chief
characteristics of that discourse or ex-
hortation when 1t does arrive, and want
to make the remarks of the morning ap-
propriate and suggestive to all classes of
Christi workers. . NE
First of all, remark that the future re-
ligious discourse will be full of a living
Christ in contradis tinction to didactic
technicalities. A discourse may be full
of Christ though hardly mentioning his
name, and asermon may be empty of
Christ while every sentence is repititious
of his titles The world wants living
Christ, not Christ standing at the head Of
formal system of theology, but Chris t
who means pardon and sympathy and
coincidence, and brotherhood and life and
heaven. A poor mans Christ. A rich
m nj Chrio An, cd ,fc
Christ. An invalid's Christ. An artisans
Christ. An every mans Christ.
A symmetrical and fine worked system
of theology is well enough tor theological
classes, but it has no more business in a
pulpit than have the technical phrases of
an anatomist OR psychologist or phv-
stefan in the sick-room of a patient. The
world wants help. immediate and world
uplifting, and it will come through dis
course in which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
everlasting possession of it, filling 1t as
full of light as is this MONDAY armament
That sermon or exhortation of the future
will not deal with men in the thread bare
illustrations of Jesus Christ. In thai
coming address there will be instances O.
vicarious suffering taken right out o
everyday life, for there is not day some
body 10 not dying for others. AS tn,
physician saving his diphtheritic patien
by sacrificing his own life; as the shil
captain going down with his vessel whil
he - getting his passengers into the life
boat; as the fireman consuming in tn,
burning building while he is taking
child out Of a forth story window; as il
summer the strong swimmer Of Eas
Hampton, or Long Branch, or Cane May
or Lake George, himself persisted trying
to rescue the drowning; as the news
paper boy one summer, supporting hi
mother for some years, his invalid mother
when offered by a gentleman fifty cent
to get some especial paper, and he got il
and rushed up in his anxiety to deliver ii
and was crushed under the wheels of tn
train, and lay on the grass with onl
strength enough to say:
'Oh, what will become of my poor sic
mother nOwp' xrsa ga
Vicarious suffering. The world is flu
of it. An engineer said to me on a loo,
motive in Dakota:
1--WE men seem to be coming to bette
appreciation than we used to. Did yo
see that account the other day of an el
gineer who, to save his passengers, stuc
to his place, and when he was found dea
In the locomotive, which was upsid dow
he was found still smiling. his hand O
the air-brakea"
And as the engineer said it to me,
put his hand on the air-brake to illustra,
his mea.s:ng, and looked at him an
thought
"You Would be just as much of her
in the same crisis"
Oh, in that religious discourse of tn
future there will be living illustration
taken out from everyday life of vicariou
Observation-Disclosures that will bring t
mind the ghastlier sacrifice of Him VIII
IN the high places of the field, on tt
cross fought our battles, and wept OF
grief, end endured our struggle, and die
our death.
A German sculptor made an image
christ, and he asked his little child, tw
years old, who it was, and she said:
THAT must be some very great man.
The sculptor was displaased with tt
criticism, so he got ane ther block Z
marble, and chiseled awao on it two
three years, and then he brought in b
little child, four or FIVE years of age, ar
he said to her:
"Who do you think that is?''
She said: "That must be the one wi
took little children in his arms al
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